UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS, HO CHI MINH CITY VIET NAM – NETHERLANDS PROJECT FOR M. PROGRAM IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS HOW TO REDUCE MANGROVE FOREST EXTRACTION IN THE MEKONG RIVER DELTA OF VIETNAM? A COMMON POOL RESOURCE EXPERIMENT ----------o0o--------- A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS By VU QUANG VINH Academic Supervisor: TRUONG DANG THUY HO CHI MINH CITY, DECEMBER 2015 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Vu Quang Vinh Thesis VNP20 UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMIC INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL STUDIES HO CHI MINH CITY THE HAGUE VIET NAM THE NETHERLANDS VIETNAM – NETHERLANDS PROGRAMME FOR M.A IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS HOW TO REDUCE MANGROVE FOREST EXTRACTION IN THE MEKONG RIVER DELTA OF VIETNAM? A COMMON POOL RESOURCE EXPERIMENT A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS By VU QUANG VINH Academic Supervisor: TRUONG DANG THUY HO CHI MINH CITY, DECEMBER 2015 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Vu Quang Vinh Thesis VNP20 DECLARATION “This is to certify that this thesis entitled “How to reduce mangrove forest extraction in the Mekong River Delta of Vietnam? A Common Pool Resource Experiment”, which is submitted by me in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Art in Development Economics to the Vietnam – The Netherlands Programme (VNP). The thesis constitutes only my original work and due supervision and acknowledgement have been made in the text to all materials used.” Vu Quang Vinh TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Vu Quang Vinh Thesis VNP20 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis would not have been able to finish without the support and guidance from many people. Firstly, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor Truong Dang Thuy for the continuous support of my thesis, for his generosity and dedication in sharing his wisdom guiding me to rethink and to deconstruct my thesis topic.
His excellent guidance helped me in all the time of research and writing of this thesis. He spent a lot of time to support me about the reference materials as well as give me advices about what should to do for my thesis. Moreover, he took time to diligently review all my thesis drafts and help me correct errors and clear my thinking as well. Moreover, the most wonderful thing is that he provided me an opportunity to join his team as intern, let me experience the research of mangrove forest in the field and gave access to the experimental data and research facilities.
Besides my supervisor, I would also like to thank all my friends here at VNP. Together we have struggled through this whole treasured journey of learning and shared memorable moments. I thank my fellows for their insightful comments and the stimulating discussions, they were always willing to help and give me best suggestions. Then, I express my gratitude to VNP officers as well as VNP librarian for their support of comfort lab room and study materials and I want to say thanks to EEPSEA for funding the data collection.
Finally, I would like to thank my family for supporting me spiritually throughout writing this thesis and to my girl friend who always stood by me through the good times and difficult. TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Vu Quang Vinh Thesis VNP20 ABBREVIATIONS ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations CICES The Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services CPR Common Pool Resource FAO Agriculture Organization of the United Nations GIZ Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit ICZN Integrated Coastal Zone Management ICZN/CCCEP Integrated Coastal Zone Management/ Climate Change and Coastal Ecosystems in Mekong Delta Vietnam Program MARD Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development MONRE Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment OLS Ordinary Least Square PES Payments for Environmental Services UNCED The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development WCED World Council of Environmental and Development TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Vu Quang Vinh Thesis VNP20 ABSTRACT Using data from series of experiment in six selected provinces in Southwestern Vietnam in March and April 2015, this thesis aims to analyze the impact of mangrove forest policies and programs on people behavior towards exploring mangrove forest. Common pool resource experiment is applied to examine the behavior of people in making decision. To control for heterogeneity of individuals, I utilize the past behavior proposed by Frey and Meier (2004).
There is robust evidence that people will quickly change their behavior if their profitability is varied, however, the local authorities must control the unexpected influence in using financial reward. In addition, it suggested that government should combine many measures to get more successful in inducing people to protect mangrove forest. Keywords: Mangrove forest, Common pool resource, Game theory, Experiment TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Vu Quang Vinh Thesis VNP20 TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: Introduction .3 Scope OF STUDY .4 Methodology and data .5 The structure of the study. 5 Chapter 2: Literature review .1 Mangrove’s ecological services .2 Mangrove forest and market failures .3 Literature review on the common pool resources experiments.
15 Chapter 3: Methodology and data. 19 The structure of questionnaire. 19 Procedures of interviewing. 25 Procedures of conducting CPR game.
26 Chapter 4: Empirical results .1 Mangrove forest in vietnam .1 The current situation of mangrove forests in the Mekong River Delta .2 The situation of mangroves management in the Mekong River Delta .3 The current situation of other common pool resources in Vietnam .2 Non-parametric analysis. 39 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Vu Quang Vinh Thesis VNP20 4.3 Treatment 2 and treatment 3: social comparison and profitability.2 Other discussions and limitations. 51 Chapter 5: Conclusions and policy implications. 60 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Vu Quang Vinh Thesis VNP20 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 4-1: Chart of change in mangroves area of Vietnam from 1943 to 2013.
29 Figure 4-2: ASEAN mangrove forest distribution map (NASA/USGS). 30 Figure 4-3: Chart of change in mangroves area of the South Vietnam from 1943 to 2008. 31 Figure 4-4: The average extraction in 20 rounds. 36 Figure 4-5: The average extraction with treatments distinction.
37 Figure 4-6: Frequencies of extraction area in two stages by treatment groups. 38 Figure 4-7: The average extraction in 20 rounds with treatment of information. 39 Figure 4-8: The average extraction in 20 rounds with treatment of social comparison. 40 Figure 4-9: The average extraction in 20 rounds with treatment of profitability.
41 Figure 4-10: The average payoff and average extraction across social comparison treatment over 20 rounds. 52 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Vu Quang Vinh Thesis VNP20 LIST OF TABLES Table 2-1: Comparison between ecological wetland and ecological mangrove functions. 6 Table 3-1: Description of some variables. 27 Table 4-1: Summary about forest-holders and forest types.
33 Table 4-2: The changes in forest area from 1945 to 2002 (unit: 1,000,000 hectares). 35 Table 4-3: The average extraction through treatments. 38 Table 4-4: Summary of main characteristics. 42 Table 4-5: Regressions for individual extracted area.
43 Table 4-6: Regressions with three treatments. 46 Table 4-7: The average payoff across treatments and stages (units: VND). 48 LIST OF APPENDIX Appendix 1: Introduction to game rules. 60 Appendix 2: The payoff table.
64 Appendix 3: Information sheet. 69 Appendix 4: Consent form. 72 Appendix 5: Questionnaire table. 73 Appendix 6: Three types of mangrove forest and their main functions.
117 Appendix 7: The situation of mangroves in some provinces in Mekong Delta region in 2012. 118 Appendix 8: Global mangrove forest distribution map (NASA/USGS). 118 Appendix 9: The correlation matrix. 119 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Vu Quang Vinh Thesis VNP20 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 PROBLEM STATEMENT The concept of “sustainable development” appeared in the report “Our Common Future” by the World Council of Environmental and Development (WCED) of United Nations in 1987.
It is defined as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own need.” The Earth Summit on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002 identified a “sustainable development” should satisfy economic development, social development and environmental protection. Sustainable development is the inevitable trend in the evolution of human society. In there, environmental protection is one of the imperative needs in the context of status of global climate changes. Vietnam is one of countries that are greatly influenced by climate change; furthermore, the economic-society development still depends heavily on the exploitation of natural resources.
Therefore, protecting natural resources in general and common pool resources in particular are the priority issues have to be resolved thoroughly. Mangrove forest, which is one of common pool resources, provides material for healthy, living and manufacturing, energy source, protect people from storm, tsunami as well as contribute to mitigate the impacts of climate changes such as global warming. In Vietnam, because of important role of mangrove forests in protecting seashore the government conducted many programs and policies to improve the situation of mangroves. However, the obtained results are not satisfactory: during the early period (2000 – 2006), there is a significant increase in area but in recent years, the mangrove forest area tends to decline (2008 – 2013).
This result raises several questions about the efficiency as well as the rationality of related measures that government researched and deployed. Moreover, the individuals and households who are subjects of these programs and policies are also considered as a factor in interpreting the results. In the mangrove forest area in Vietnam, the living conditions of most people are so difficult, and they often use backward methods to do for a living. In addition, there is unreasonable in making practical and effective use of mangrove forest, the local communities extract firewood, 1 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Vu Quang Vinh Thesis VNP20 wood and seafood under the mangroves canopy but do not pay attention to restore the mangrove forest (Que and Hai 2012).
Due to these reasons, the individuals and households are the weak links of a chain in executing mangroves conservation projects. When introducing new policies and regulations, according to conventional economic theories, policy makers assume that individuals will be motivated by their own interest without regard for others. However, Cardenas, Stranlund and Willis (2000) found that people do not always comport themselves with this way but could between self and group interests. They explained that the external regulations that aimed to control the local environment quality can “crowd out other-regarding behavior” and hence people will become more self-interested in making decisions.
It means that the benefits from performing new regulations are unlike the initial expectations. And the local regulations may be ineffective if “the cost of achieving acceptable levels of compliance” exceeds that benefits. However, individuals respond not only the cost of performing new regulations but also other factors, i. their wealth (Cardenas 2003), personal characteristics (Cárdenas and Ostrom 2004) or social context of the community (Janssen et al.
In 2005, Cardenas conducted another experiment in Colombia with villagers and students, in which the individuals were asked about their preferences toward the application of external regulations through voting mechanism. Cardenas (2005) pointed out that there is a significant difference in behavior between group of villagers and group of student when an external regulation is imposed. For this reason, the author suggested unless we replicate the experiment in the field after doing it in the laboratory, we would miss some related information. Base on these suggestions and other relevant paper, the simultaneous interview is also needed.
Although there is some mangrove forest research in Vietnam such as Werthmann, Weingart and Kirk (2010), Thu and Populus (2007), many of them concentrated on survey data and used statistical methods to analyze (Tuyen 2014; McNally, McEwin and Holland 2011).